BEING
PREPARED
As I saw people getting ready for camping trips and traveling for the Memorial Holiday weekend, I
had a chilling flashback to an ill-fated scouting trip of my own, from yonder
years of my youth.
I was probably about 13 years old when
this unfortunate escapade occurred.
First off, however, you should probably know that my family has quite a
scouting reputation! And by reputation,
I don’t mean the “Eagle Scout” kind!
No, in fact it all started with my Dad
many years ago when he was a young whippersnapper. I don’t know all of the "Dennis the Menace" moments
that transpired from his younger scouting years, but the culminating event of
his scouting experience occurred when he threw a can of pork and beans in a
raging campfire one night, which resulted in a piece of exploding-hot-tin-can-shrapnel
embedding itself in the scoutmasters dairy-aire as he lectured them by the
fireside. He wasn’t actually kicked out
of scouts… just strongly encouraged not to ever come back again!
So, the prestigious scouting legacy in
my family began, which my brother’s and I carried on in all our genetic glory. Don’t get me wrong – I loved the camp outs and
most of the activities. It was just all
the uniforms, silly cheers, and leaders who treated it like a religion which
rubbed me the wrong way. I guess I didn’t
like feeling like my worth as a person was based on whether I met a certain
dress code or had a certain number of patches in my possession. For many kids, scouting is a wonderful and
very important part of their life and development, and I fully support anyone
who wants to be involved. But it just
didn’t fit my mold.
The particular camp-out I will
reminisce about today was one of the most dreaded memories – A WINTER
CAMPOUT!!!
It began on a Friday afternoon, when I
got home from school and my mom reminded me I had a scout trip that
weekend. I had totally forgotten, and in
a mad rush to make it to the church on time before everybody left, I threw in a
flimsy, thin, little, almost-see-through nylon sleeping bag, my little tin
camp-cook kit, and an extra pair of socks.
It was only as I was walking out the door that I realized this was one
of the outings where we were responsible for bringing out own food.
In a rush I grabbed a kid’s favorite –
a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese for dinner, along with some eggs wrapped up
in a towel for breakfast the next morning and shoved them in my back-pack, and
away I went.
Only later, after a tiring and
bone-chilling snowshoe hike for several miles through the mountains, did I
realize that instant macaroni and cheese also required milk and butter to
complete the recipe.
Struggling to melt enough snow in my
little pot to boil the noodles, as everyone else was preparing to go to bed, I
suffered through choking down cold, crunchy, cheese-powder-caked noodles and
then nearly freezing to death through the long winter night in my flimsy
sleeping bag! To top it all off, the
eggs I had hastily wrapped in a dish towel were crushed in my back pack when I
retrieved them the next morning.
It’s not that the other scouts weren’t
willing to share and help me in my plight; they most certainly were – for the
right price. $5 for a hot dog, $2 for a
hot dog bun, and so on. Of course I didn’t
have any money way up there in the wild, so I suffered. My scout leaders chuckled and extolled the lesson
I was learning about “Being Prepared”. I
didn’t appreciate their advice and being the source of their object lesson at
the time, but looking back now, I guess I should thank them for the lesson I
learned – The Hard Way.
Life is tough! It has a way of throwing some pretty
unexpected things at us without any warning at all. Loss of a job, illness, financial collapse,
natural disasters, accidents, warfare, and an endless list of possible
calamities can befall us when we are least expecting them. So what can we do to be better prepared for the
uncertainty of the future ahead of us?
Please humor me as I share a few
thoughts on the subject… and do it with the help of some squirrels. (My wife
thinks squirrels are cute, so I often send her text messages with pictures of
dogs or squirrels to brighten her day.
That’s another lesson in treating your wife right guys, but for today,
we’ll stick to preparedness).
1. Food
and water supply. If disaster strikes or
your income stops, you won’t be able to just go to the store and get more
supplies. You may have to make do with
what you have on hand. Having a few basic emergency provisions in your car or in a portable back pack is also a good idea, because you never know where you will be when an emergency happens.
2. Have
an alternative cooking or heating source.
If there is no electricity or you run out of gas for your grill, what
are you going to do? There are a variety of portable cooking stoves or rocket stoves that will allow you to use twigs and branches to cook or heat a space, so that you can simply use things all around you as a fuel source.
3. Some
form of shelter. If you are away from your
home or on the road, do you have a basic way of making an emergency shelter to
stay out of the rain and elements? Emergency blankets, tarps, blankets, etc.. are all possible ways to stay warm or make a temporary portable shelter in an emergency.
4. Have knowledge
of basic first aid, CPR or other simple medical skills and supplies. These skills might not only be important for
your own personal injuries, but can help those around you in need.
5. Have a
means of personal protection. You hope
you never have to use force to protect yourself, but being prepared will often
keep you out of trouble if a situation went bad.
This may
also include knowing some personal self-defense skills.
6. Stay
in shape. Even if it’s just walking or
some other basic way of keeping your fitness levels up. This will come in handy if you had to walk a
longer distance to find loved ones, as well as the fact that improved fitness
levels will help your body cope better with the stresses of an emergency
situation.
7. If
possible, have an alternative source of communication. If the phones and cellular systems all shut
down, do you have a plan or way to communicate with your family or loved ones,
or at least have a designated meeting place in an emergency?
8. Group
together with friends and family if possible.
Having a reliable support system and team effort would be crucial to any
type of moderate to long term survival.
In a real emergency, it would be tough to make it on your own for an
extended period of time.
9. If
possible, have some extra clothing in your emergency bag, or a way to dress in
layers, so that you can adapt to changes in hot or cold temperatures.
10. Find
a simple way to keep yourself entertained.
It might be a simple deck of cards, singing, or even a journal to help keep you
mentally relaxed at times.
11. Stay
calm! Even though things might get crazy
in an emergency, panic rarely does any good.
Being able to keep your wits about you can make all the difference in
getting out of a situation or being able to help others.
12. Learn
how to pace yourself. There may be times
when you will have to go for extended periods to keep safe, but learning how to
be aware of when you need rest and recovery is also important to avoid
overexertion, dehydration, etc…
13. Learn
self-confidence! When things get tough, it’s
often hard to cope if you don’t have a belief in what you are capable of. The truth is, all of us have hidden
reservoirs of courage and capacity that we should learn to tap into.
14. Don’t
count out the importance of religion. I
don’t care what your personal beliefs are, having a sense of what is morally
right and wrong is what makes us human.
When things get crazy in an emergency or natural disaster, having a
belief and understanding of the truth that there is a higher power we can draw
on for support is invaluable!
15. Don’t
hesitate to pray! Sometimes desperate
situations drive us to our knees and being able to reach out to a God who loves
us, is a reservoir of power just waiting to be tapped into.
16. If ye
are prepared, ye shall not fear.
But if we all do our part to be prepared
individually and as families, then we can weather the storms of life together
all the easier!
Take my word for it. It's no fun freezing your keester off and eating crunchy macaroni noodles in dried cheese power! Learn a lesson from a former bad boy scout and BE PREPARED!!!
